WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama told rabbis in a pre-High Holidays call that Jews should share their story of working to advance civil rights as a means of inspiring change at a time of racial tensions. Obama spoke Monday with over 600 rabbis from the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist movements. His tone on…

(JTA) — Jewish groups in Israel, the United States and around the world lauded former Israeli president Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday, as a respected leader and a warrior for peace. “Peres was always driven by a deep sense of responsibility toward the entire Jewish people. He concerned himself with the fate and future…

Former Israeli president and elder statesman Shimon Peres, 93, died in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, prompting U.S. President Barack Obama to mourn: “A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was aware of and supported a plan to close lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2013 in an act of political payback, a key prosecution witness testified Tuesday at the criminal trial of two former Christie associates.

(JTA) — A Jewish Labour Party member in England was heckled and applauded in a speech condemning a recent wave of anti-Semitic incidents in his party. At the party’s conference on Tuesday in Liverpool, the national vice-chair of the Jewish Labour Movement invoked a former Jewish Labour defense minister by name in an impassioned plea against party bigotry. “It…

(JTA) — Joseph Sitruk, who served as chief rabbi of France for more than two decades, has died. Sitruk died Sunday after being hospitalized for several days following a stroke, The Times of Israel reported. He was 71. French President Francois Hollande called the Orthodox religious leader a “defender of secularism” in a statement announcing his death,…

After months of anticipation, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met last night in the first of three presidential debates. Starting at 9:00 p.m. and stretching an hour-and=a-half, the spectacle lived up to the hype, and felt at times more like a boxing match than a civic event. Here’s five Jewish snap-shots from a night to remember: